


Made the Pieces Part of Me

by sequence_fairy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The paladins are not each other's therapists and it shows, We'll call this, but really it's just what war does to people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 21:30:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16668643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: This war they have been thrust into does not come with an instruction manual nor does it come with talk therapy. It does come with panic attacks, acute PTSD, and very little resolution.Lance drops down out of the Red Lion’s cockpit, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, knees bent to take his weight. He pulls his armour off piece by piece, until he’s wearing only the flightsuit and then he reaches up to scrub his hands through his hair.Lance stacks his armour pieces near the wall across from the lion, slowly piling them onto each other in a precarious tower that is guaranteed to tumble into disarray the minute he stops holding on to it. He rests one of his vambraces on top and lifts his hand. Sure enough, the whole thing tips into a spill of blue and white across the floor. Insecure foundations lead to unsteady upper stories. Lance doesn’t need to think too deeply about the parallel.





	Made the Pieces Part of Me

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this fic since I finished watching Season 6, which was at the end of July of this year. This has been brewing for a while.

The planet detonates in a brilliant white flash that is gone as quickly as it comes.

From his vantage point, well outside the blast zone, Lance slits his eyes in vain against the flare of light. It hangs in photo-negative across his eyeline. He blinks to try and make it go away, but the afterimage sticks, stark and violent, against the backs of his eyelids.

“Uh, Keith?” Pidge’s voice is tinny, the radiation from the explosion already starting to affect their comms. Lance tunes out her explanation of the thermodynamics of the explosion, eyes on his sensor screen, hoping that this massive energy discharge has gone unnoticed by any unfriendlies in the quadrant. His eyes widen. Instead of unfriendlies, it’s only showing the speeding onrush of a massive wave of energy. Lance’s stomach drops. He swallows hard.

This is going to hurt.

“Hold the line!” Keith’s voice grates across the commlink, interrupting Pidge. Lance grits his teeth, anticipating the incoming shockwave. The blast rolls through his cockpit, making all his monitors fizz and sputter while the proximity alarms wail in a shrill canon. The Red lion rights herself, and Lance lets out the breath he was holding. He’s alright. He’ll be sore in the morning, but that’s not unusual after a fight. A quick glance at his status monitor confirms there’s no damage to the lion, and Lance relaxes back into his chair, hands loose on the control arms.  

“Everyone okay?” Allura’s voice is shaky, but there’s steel underneath it. Lance smiles despite himself.

“All’s well here,” Lance chimes in, followed by the rest of the team’s voices in a chorus of responses. Lance takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He thinks he should be happier that they got through this unscathed. He regrips around the controls, reaffirming to himself that the mission was a success.

“Good work, Paladins! The detonation was successful!” Coran’s forced cheer falls flat. Silence follows Coran’s declaration, stilted and almost anticipatory. Lance blinks, purposefully, one more time, to try and wash the fading afterimage away completely. He fails. It remains.

“Let’s go home,” Keith says into the silence, and Lance hears the strain in his voice. This mission, while successful, has worn on the team. Lance turns the Red Lion around, and follows the rest of his team back to the castleship and does his best not to think about how his entire body aches, or about what they’ve just done.

The flight back to is subdued; none of their usual cheer at having completed their mission evident. The comms are silent between the five paladins, except for Keith asking for a status check every 15 doboshes. The usual buzzing warmth of the mental link in the back of Lance’s head is quiet, no one reaching out or providing comfort.

Probing delicately against the minds of his fellow paladins, Lance comes up against high walls in places he expected to find them (Keith) and places he has grown used to having none (Hunk). Lance withdraws gently, trying to imbue his retreat with something like comfort, but his mind keeps turning back to the explosion; to imagining the wicked white heat of it as it expanded from the core outwards. Lance wonders if the people on the surface had a split-second awareness of their impending obliteration or if there wasn’t even time for it to register.

Violet light sears across the bond, punting Lance back into his own head the way a hurricane drives a two-by-four through a cement wall. Lance opens his eyes on a gasp. Keith’s face is impassive in the holoscreen to his left, but there’s something in his eyes that Lance thinks might be reflected in his own. Keith doesn’t say anything, just nods and closes the commlink he’d opened between them. Almost immediately after that, on the group line, Keith requests his regular status update and Lance fumbles through his systems check, fingers feeling thick and clumsy as he tries to call up the right screens.

Thankfully, the loom of the castleship in their viewscreens saves Lance from having to stumble through a weapons check, and he slumps back against his chair. Red purrs underneath his hands and Lance lets her help him plot the landing trajectory into his nav unit. He lets her take over entirely on the landing, still too rattled to focus on the task at hand.

Her landing is smoother than he could ever have managed on his own. He drops down out of the cockpit, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, knees bent to take his weight. He can hear the other paladins moving about in their hangars and there’s a brief spike of chatter on helmet comms about whether people want to eat dinner, or just go to bed. Lance ignores it, pulling his armour off piece by piece, until he’s wearing only the flightsuit and then he reaches up to scrub his hands through his hair.

Lance stacks his armour pieces near the wall across from the lion, slowly piling them onto each other in a precarious tower that is guaranteed to tumble into disarray the minute he stops holding on to it. He rests one of his vambraces on top and lifts his hand. Sure enough, the whole thing tips into a spill of blue and white across the floor. Insecure foundations lead to unsteady upper stories. Lance doesn't need to think too deeply about the parallel.

When Lance finally takes his leave of Red’s hangar, the castleship is quiet. This late into the night cycle, the corridors are lit only with auxiliary power. Blue strip lights along the bottom of the walls pulse softly in time with the deep thrum of the castleship’s thrusters. Lance shuffles along, one hand stretched out so his fingers barely graze the cool metal of the walls. He turns a corner to head to the paladin’s wing, and comes face to face with Keith.

The startle response is involuntary. Lance inhales on a hitched gasp and his heart thuds against his ribs.

Keith pushes past him, head down and clearly not in the mood to talk. Lance turns to watch him go; watches the tight line of his shoulders turn down the corridor to the lifts. He decides that Keith is probably going to go and beat several droids into small pieces and wonders if that method of coping is something that he should try, too.

Instead, Lance decides that a shower and whatever sleep he might be able to get when he’s done reliving the finality of that nightmarish flash of light will serve him better for now, and continues down to his quarters. Lance thumbs open his door, stumbles over the threshold, and grabs hold of the wall to keep himself on his feet.

“Shit,” he says, because it helps.

Soft blue light washes through his quarters, bright enough to cast strange shadows and turn familiar objects into grotesque caricatures of themselves. Lance makes quick work of stripping out of his flightsuit and getting into the shower.

Standing under the spray, water turned up as hot as he can bear, Lance lets his head hang, chin to his chest, while the water streams down his back. It feels like his whole body is one large bruise. He lifts his hands to the tiled wall, palms pressed against the cooler surface, as if to brace himself against an onslaught. He’s not sure what he’s holding himself up against, but he feels like if he doesn’t, he’ll crumble into nothing against the shower floor.

Eventually, when his skin starts to prune, he lathers up quickly and then rinses off. When he shuts the water off, the deep stillness of the castle at night returns. The patter of water on the floor is the only sound left. Lance dries off hurriedly, pulling on loose pants and hanging up his towel.

Getting into bed means shoving all the clothes he left piled on it this morning onto the floor. Lance sweeps his arms across the surface of his bed and listens to the clothes land with soft noises. His Tia’s voice scolds him for the mess in the back of his head, but Lance shuts her out, sliding under his covers, rolling over to face the wall and burying his face into his pillow.

Sleep evades him.

Lance lies in his bunk, staring at the ceiling until the automatic lights turn up to their early morning level. He hauls himself out of bed, and doesn’t look himself in the mirror, knowing he looks as haggard as he feels. He rummages around in the pile of clothes on the floor for a shirt, and pulls on the first one he finds.

The material is soft against his skin, so soft that he knows it’s Altean in origin, and Lance pulls it off, balling it up and tossing it into the corner of his room, before digging for another one.

He locates another shirt and then pulls his hoodie on over top, sliding his feet into his shoes as he does. He thumbs his door open as his stomach growls and Lance realises that his last meal was nearly an entire quintant ago.

\--

He’s not the first one to the kitchen this morning. Allura is sitting at the table, a cup of something that steams at her elbow. She’s staring off into nothing, chin in her hand, and doesn’t turn when he comes in.

Lance goes through the cupboards, looking for something that resembles coffee. He wants the taste of home - dark roast and sweet cream, and the faintest hint of brine - but there’s nothing here that is even close. Lance slams the cupboard shut, irrational and sudden rage bristling along his spine and funneling down into his clenched fists. He looks down, and breathes in and then out, in a long, steady exhale.

“Lance?” Allura asks when he lets his shoulders slump forward. Lance had forgotten she was there. He turns, and watches her expression shift from quickly shuttered fear to concern and then to careful interest.

The fight goes out of him a whoosh of breath, and Lance slides into a chair across from Allura at the table. “I’m sorry,” he says. He leans back in the chair. “I just wanted–” Lance sighs, and drops forward, leaning onto his forearms. “I wanted a reminder of home.”

Allura picks up her mug and blows across the top, dispelling the steam. Lance watches her take a sip. Her hands cradle the mug; her delicate fingers a vivid contrast against the soft white Altean analogue for the heavy china of a coffee mug. They’re nigh unbreakable too, Lance knows, he and Pidge had tried one night to break one and been extremely unsuccessful. Allura sets the mug down again, the gentle ding of it landing on the metal tabletop brings Lance’s gaze up from her hands until he finds himself staring into her eyes.

“Allura, I–” Lance cuts himself off, unsure how to broach the subject of yesterday’s mission. Allura waits. Her hair is pulled back into a loose braid that hangs over her shoulder. Strands that have escaped their confines frame her face like moonlit silk. Her expression is expectant, her eyes soft. Lance wishes he had a word for the colour, all he knows is that her eyes are otherworldly, like the way she sometimes glows faintly, as if her magic is seeping out of her pores.

Normally, Lance isn’t someone who is groping for words - he usually has too many of them, but this morning, his gift of gab seems to have deserted him entirely. He shakes his head, and stands up quickly. The chair scrapes against the floor. Lance winces at the noise. “Never mind,” he says, and leaves Allura in the kitchen. Maybe he will try Keith’s method after all.

He can feel her eyes on him until he turns the corner out of her sight.

Somehow, he manages to avoid running into anybody else until he gets to the training deck. The door snicks open, and Lance barely gets out of the way of the headless droid body coming his way. It lands in a heap of arcing circuits and battered metal. Lance looks down at it and then up at where it came from. Keith is lathered in sweat, and leaning hard on his luxite blade, it’s point dug into the floor.

“What d’you want, Lance?” Keith husks, wiping his forehead with the back of his glove.

“Same as you, I expect,” Lance quips, and Keith hefts his blade. Lance shrugs out of his sweater, leaving it in a heap near the door with Keith’s.

“Droids or one on one?” Keith asks. It’s nice that he doesn’t have to explain, Lance thinks, as he walks onto the training floor. He swings his arms up over his head and stretches, and then bends at the waist, reaching for his toes.

“Droids first, not in the mood to let you mop the floor with me quite yet.” Lance sneaks a look at Keith, and is buoyed for a moment when the scowl on the other man’s face lifts briefly. Lance continues his stretches, and Keith waits, bouncing on the balls of his feet, until Lance stands, and nods, letting Keith know that he’s ready to begin.

“Fine,” Keith says, and then to the room at large; “training level four, two combatants!”

Droids materialise around them, and Lance doesn’t hesitate to leap into the fray next to Keith. Keith’s blade rings as he slices through droid after droid, but Lance finds he prefers hand-to-hand today, he needs the feel of the metal under his fists and the crunch of circuits under his boots.

It’s easy to lose himself in the repetitive motions - muscle memory takes over, and Lance lets the fight wash over him, guarding Keith’s back and letting Keith guard his. For all that they haven’t spent a lot of time fighting back-to-back outside of the lions, they move together fairly well. Lance thinks it has something to do with the pseudo-Vulcan mind-meld all of them get into when they form Voltron.

He’s ducking in under the long reach of one of the droid’s arms when he remembers the sizzling violet light in his head and Keith’s carefully blank face when he’d opened his eyes. Lance missteps, and the droid he’s holding off comes in with a haymaker that would have lifted Lance off his feet if Keith hadn’t swept them out from under him. Lance goes down like a stone, and Keith severs the droid’s arm at the shoulder.

“Time!” Keith calls, and the droids come to a halt. Lance takes a minute on the floor to gather himself. Sweat cools on his temples, and the muscles in his legs burn. Keith leans over him, brows furrowed. “Y’alright there?”

“Yeah,” Lance says, and heaves himself up to sitting. “Sorry.”

“Saw you space out, you sure you’re okay to keep going?”

“I’m fine,” Lance says, firm. Keith takes him at his word, shrugging and then reaching down to Lance. Lance takes the other paladin’s hand in his, and lets Keith haul him to his feet.

Once standing, Lance shakes himself. “Armoury selection,” Lance says, voice directed up towards the ceiling. Keith waits while the program loads, and Lance cycles through several options before landing on the Altean version of a quarterstaff. Lance hefts the staff, feeling the weight of it and then brings it up, plants his feet and swings it in a wide arc around himself. The tip whistles as it cuts through the air and the follow-through smacks into his palm as Lance catches it and swaps his grip.

“Ready to go?” Keith asks, and Lance nods. Keith barks the command to re-start the training sequence and Lance yells as he leaps at the first droid, dropping it with a well-aimed thwack across the top of it’s shoulders, and then a lightning quick sweep of its legs out from under it.

He hears Keith grunt as he rides his own droid to the floor, thighs around its neck and knife stabbed clean through the top of its head. Keith rises from his crouch when the droid disappears beneath him and Lance rolls his shoulders in anticipation of the next wave.

They get through three more levels of training before Lance starts to flag, and his hits start to get sloppy. The last droid gets off a lucky blast of electrokinetic energy that lifts Lance off his feet and slams him into the nearest wall. Keith dispatches it with a quick thrust and the thing dies in a crackle of light and the smell of fried circuits. Lance groans from where he’s come to rest on the floor, heaving himself up to sitting.

“Uncle,” he says, wearily, tapping the floor with his palm. Keith shuts the training program off. The training deck hums as it quiesces.

Lance looks up at Keith, who is now doing cool down stretches, nice and easy, and before he can stop himself he’s talking; “I don’t like what we did yesterday–a whole planet? That seems like–” Well, it seems like a Galran thing to do, but Lance catches himself before he says it. He risks a look at Keith.

Keith’s mouth is a grim line. “Sometimes, we have to make hard choices, Lance,” he says, and stretches one arm out, and then other. “The planet was a hotbed of Galran empire weapons-manufacturing. We’ve set them back _months_ in their ability to resupply the front lines.”

“But not all the people on the planet were Galran,” Lance protests, leaning away from the wall. “I just– it doesn’t feel right.”

Keith sinks down to sitting, stretching himself out over his legs, hands reaching for his toes. His voice is muffled into his thighs when he answers. “This is a war, not some game you play with Pidge and Hunk in the lounge.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that we murdered an entire planet!?” Lance knows his voice is starting to take on a hysterical edge, but he can’t seem to shut up. “There were non-combatants on that planet, Keith. You _know_ that. Shouldn’t we better than the Galrans?”

“Civility doesn’t win wars, Lance,” Keith says, sitting back up. All of a sudden he sounds utterly exhausted. “The Galra aren’t going to stop destroying planets that have civilians on them–they leave their own people to die without looking back. If we want to win this war–”

“I don’t want to win it like this,” Lance says, and pushes himself to his feet.

“The ends–”

“Do _not_ justify the means,” Lance interrupts with a snarl, and snatches up his sweater from the floor and leaves Keith alone in the training deck.

With his bitten-off confrontation with Allura earlier and the raw edge of his argument with Keith still riding just under his skin, Lance heads back to his quarters. He doesn’t want to start any more fights with anyone else today. He makes it back without interruption and collapses face-first into his bunk, hoping that this time, sleep will find him.

He wakes, groggy and shaking off the shredded visions of nightmares, unsure how long he’s slept. He thinks about not leaving his room, but he turns his head to check the display of the clock on the table. The Altean symbols tell him it’s late, and so does the dimmed lighting in his quarters. Night cycle. He slept for nearly an entire day? Lance attributes it to the adrenaline crash and not sleeping at all for the previous forty hours. He’s still so tired though, yawning as he drags his hand down his face.

Lance sits up, and blinks at his shadowed room. He’s surprised to discover that no one has tried to wake him. Uncharitably, Lance thinks Keith probably told everyone that Lance tapped out of a training exercise and that he’d gone to mope. His stomach growls.

Shifting so he can plant his feet on the floor, Lance presses a hand to his stomach. He never did manage to eat anything while he was awake earlier. Maybe he can avoid anyone on his way to the galley to find something to fill the gaping void in his gut. His stomach growls again, menacing, and Lance makes the decision to risk a kitchen run, and reminds himself to stock up on snacks for his room the next time they make planetfall.

He doesn’t get his wish though, as he rounds the corner to find Pidge leaning against the wall near the galley.

She’s looking deflated; even her hair seems to have lost some of its customary volume and Lance definitely doesn’t like the downturn of her mouth. She looks up when she hears him coming, and Lance decides that Keith’s thousand-yard stare has got nothing on hers. Pidge looks right through him, and Lance slows to a stop in front of her.

“Pidge?” Lance asks, tentative. Pidge’s mouth curls briefly before she blinks.

“Oh,” she says, and blinks again. “I’m sorry, I thought– I just, I wanted–” Pidge cuts herself off with a frustrated noise. She looks up at him. Lance doesn’t wait for her to figure out what she wanted, just pushes past her and into the galley. She follows him in.

Lance ignores her in favour of opening cupboards to see what’s available. There isn’t a lot, so he pulls down a box of what they’ve decided are some kind of energy bar and rips into the wrapper, taking a huge bite and chewing quickly. They taste mostly of sawdust, and are oddly gummy. Lance is not really a fan, but hunger wins out over refined palates, and he scarfs the whole thing in four bites before prowling to the fridge.

Pidge sits at the table, fidgeting with the seasoning shakers. Altean castles don’t come equipped with salt and pepper, but Hunk has made do quite well with what he has on hand. Lance looks briefly over his shoulder as he pulls out a neon orange concoction that he knows is some kind of juice. It’s pleasantly sweet, he remembers, and he pulls down two glasses, one for himself and one for Pidge.

Lance pushes one full glass across the table to her, and sits as well, leaning back in his chair. He sips his juice, washing the taste of the energy bar out of his mouth. The juice is similar to that terrible retro orange drink they sometimes had in the mess hall back at the Garrison - all electrolytes, vitamin C, sugar and violently neon orange food-colouring.

“I tried to talk to Hunk, but he’s–you know how he gets–” Pidge trails off, lifting her head to look over at Lance. She runs a finger tip along the rim of her glass but doesn’t drink.

“What’s on your mind, Pidge?” Lance says, and there’s a bite to his words that Lance doesn’t really like hearing in his own voice. Pidge doesn’t speak, so Lance does it for her; “We blew up a planet to take out a weapons installation.” Pidge hunches her shoulders at Lance’s tone, and curls her hands around her glass. He barrels on anyway; “We blew up a planet and everyone and everything on it is dead, and then, we flew away, without a word.”

“Lance,” Pidge says, trying for soothing. “There was no other option–”

Lance explodes to his feet. His movement rattles the table, and juice from Pidge’s glass spills onto the tabletop, a seeping orange puddle. “There’s always another option! We could have sent drones in to destroy the plant, we could have infiltrated it and set it to self-destruct, we could have done literally _a_ _nything_ else.” His chest is heaving, and something searing hot roils in his belly. He swallows. “There were children on that planet, Pidge, _children_.”

“You don’t know that,” Pidge protests, but her eyes are blown wide and there’s a tremor in her voice.

“Don’t I?” Lance’s voice is low and dark. “Don’t we all?”

The galley air is charged. Lance whirls, walking away from Pidge. Behind him, he can hear her getting to her feet, and then yelling after him, but he’s already running.

His feet carry him to the Red Lion’s hangar.

The lion’s presence engulfs him as soon as he steps into the larger room, and Lance nearly sinks to the floor in relief. “Red,” he breathes, leaning against the lion’s leg. The metal is faintly warm to the touch, a reminder that the lions are alive in their own way. Lance rests his forehead against the metal, palms level with his shoulder and pressed flat.

A rumbling purr comes from the bright spot in the back of Lance’s head where his bond with his lion lives. The purr seems to pour down his spine, like a river of soothing heat that warms him through the core and down into his extremities. Lance takes a deep breath, letting his eyes fall shut. He lets it out slowly.

Red nudges him inside his mind, and Lance opens his eyes, looking up at the hulking head of his beast. “Okay,” he says, and starts to climb into the lion. He settles himself in the cockpit, relaxing into the chair, hands loose in his lap. The purr is all around him here, and he lets himself sink into it, closing his eyes again, letting the lion lull him down into relaxation.

After a moment, the floor drops out from under his feet and Lance opens his eyes.

He’s in free-fall.

All around him is thick, inky black, and though he reaches with both arms and legs, there is nothing. Lance looks up, only black above him. He looks down; only black below. Lance’s heart slams into his throat, choking off the panic before he can voice it. He sends a desperate prayer up to the lion, but either she isn’t listening or she can’t reach him here.

He keeps falling.

Landing is sudden, and jarring. Lance loses his footing, landing on his knees and then falling forward onto his hands. The surface is smooth and hard beneath his palms. There’s no purchase when he flexes his fingers, trying to dig his nails in.  Lance winces - his knees hurt - pushing himself up to his feet and looks around himself.

As he looks, a star field comes up around him, like he’s standing in the middle of the map room on the ship, except impossibly more beautiful. It’s almost like he’s taken a step back from the entire universe; like he’s seeing the wheeling turn of galaxies and the nearly infinite spread of stars from some vantage point above them.

“Wow,” he breathes, unable to control himself. He turns around around in a tight circle before tentatively taking a step forward. The stars swing around him as he moves, and Lance can’t help himself, he reaches out to brush his fingers through the arms of a spiral galaxy that reminds him of the Milky Way. As his fingers sift through the densely packed stars, he can feel the beat of the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, and the tiny pinpricks of heat that every tiny sun is producing. He brushes his hand out towards the edge of the galaxy, and wraps his fingers around a lone star out on it’s own, curls his palm around it and lifts it to his face.

The star in his hand glows, pulsing in time with Lance’s own heartbeat. The warmth seeps into his skin; the tiny fusion reactor at its core working over time. Lance cups both hands around the ball of light, staring down into the infinity of its brilliance. This high up, he feels like he could paint the sky in constellations of his own making, that he could push the stars into shapes that would tell the stories of his life. He marvels at the thrill of power that awakens in him, but leans away from it at the same time.

There’s the sound of footsteps behind him, and Lance turns. A lioness sits, tail curled around her feet, and baleful golden eyes watching him. Her fur is a tawny red. She blinks, slow and measured. Lance blinks back. The lioness huffs, shakes her head and then stands. She turns, and Lance knows she means for him to follow her.

Lance returns the star in his hands to the deep blue of the sky, lets it slip through his fingers like sand and watches it settle into its new place, flaring bright, brighter and then, Lance watches it die. The explosion is soundless, and Lance feels like a part of him goes out with the light, and he wishes he’d never pulled the star from the sky, wishes he’d never reached in and felt the warmth of starlight against his skin. He wishes he’d never touched this kind of infinity.

He turns to follow the lion.

They walk for what seems like a long time, but Lance has no frame of reference. He only knows that the sky is still filled with stars and that the surface beneath his feet is even. Eventually it seems like they get to where they are going, because the lioness sits again, tail curling around her haunches, and looks down at the surface below her feet. Lance comes to a stop beside her head.

She’s massive. He barely comes up to her shoulder. Lance longs to reach out and see whether the fur between her ears is as soft as it looks but he also knows that her jaws would crush his bones to matchsticks, so he keeps his hands to himself. He can feel the heat of her, standing this close, and he looks down, and sees that her front paw is bigger than his head. Fear snakes up his spine, before Lance batters it back because it’s Red, and she’d never hurt him.

She’s making a low rumbling sound, and Lance recognizes it as the purr he’d heard earlier in the Red Lion. She shifts slightly sideways and bumps against Lance’s shoulder. It almost knocks him off his feet. Her fur is thick, and softer than Lance could have imagined and his fingers sink in of their own accord. The purr steps up in frequency, and Lance can feel the vibration of it up through his hands.

 _Lance_ , she whispers, across the back of his mind. _Lance_. Her voice is less sound and more feeling, more the warmth of a mug of hot coffee in his hands, more the tug of a tide around his ankles, more the gentle spice of his mamà’s chicken and rice.

“Red?”

The lioness chuffs, and then swings her head to nuzzle into Lance’s arm, before fading into a swirl of reddish star-shine. “Red! Come back! Don’t–” Lance swallows. “Don’t leave.”

“Lance?” Lance whirls at the sound of that voice, so familiar and so missed.

“ _Shiro_?” Shiro raises his arm in a half-wave, his smile breaking across his face, and Lance grins in return. “Oh my God, you’re really here! Wha–how?”

Shiro shrugs, and takes another step forward. Lance meets him halfway and tugs him down into a hug. Shiro’s armour is a blocky barrier between them, but Lance holds on for all he’s worth.  They break apart after a long moment, and Lance steps back, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck. A breeze from nowhere ruffles the hem of his hoodie, the cool air leaving goosebumps climbing his spine.

“We miss you, so much,” Lance says. He wishes there was a better way to convey how much they all miss Shiro, how much a part of their lives he had become and the wreckage his disappearance had left them in. As much as the shift to have Keith lead and Allura take Blue, leaving Lance in the Red Lion has been effective, there’s still a hole where Shiro used to be. Lance knows the others feel it, even if no one will say it out loud.

“I miss you guys, too,” Shiro says, stepping up and turning so he’s looking out over the starfield with Lance. “Tell me everything that’s happened.” Shiro lifts his left hand and claps Lance on the shoulder, thumb circling the top of his shoulder unconsciously. Lance feels the pressure of Shiro’s thumb through the material of his hoodie, and wonders why it feels like something that’s trying and failing to be comforting.

Lance explains, briefly, about the shift in pilots. He watches from the corner of his eye, as Shiro’s eyes turn fond at the mention of Allura flying Blue and Lance stepping into the Red Lion’s cockpit. Then, Lance watches them light with fierce pride when Lance explains that this leaves Keith flying the Black Lion and leading the team.

“He’s a good leader,” Lance says, then cuts a sideways glance to Shiro. “Not as good as you,” Lance adds hastily, “but you know, he does have his moments.” Shiro’s lips quirk up. It’s almost a smile, and Lance will take what he can get.

“And the fight?” Shiro’s tone is casual, but Lance knows the question is anything but. He takes a moment to form his thoughts. The breeze drifts by them again, cool fingers grabbing at the back of Lance’s neck. Shiro gives no sign of having noticed the chill in the air.

“It’s–” Lance sighs, and looks down at where he’s pulling at the hem of his shirt in both hands. “You know, Shiro, there’s something I want to ask you. Have you ever–have you ever had to do something you didn’t want to do? Like, follow orders that you knew were wrong?”

Shiro is quiet for a moment. He looks out over the starscape and after a moment, Lance follows his gaze. Out to their left, the brief flare of an explosion sends a ripple through the other stars in that system, and Lance feels something hot and shameful curling in his gut. He remembers the star from earlier, the one that he’d killed simply because he’d wanted to hold it in his hand. Choices have consequences, Lance knows, but how could he have known?

“I didn’t agree, I didn’t want to do it, I fought for a different option,” Lance says, in a heated rush, desperate to keep Shiro from thinking anything less of him. Shiro’s expression doesn’t change. Grey eyes asses Lance from professional distance, despite how closely they are standing beside each other. Lance shivers under the even gaze, the cold from earlier crawling further up his spine with every passing second while he waits for Shiro to deliver the judgement Lance knows is coming.

The memory of the fight before the mission flares in Lance’s mind; everyone’s voices, loud and pressing in, Hunk trying to peace-make between Lance and Keith, the grim line of Allura’s mouth, the way Pidge had stayed silent, the final glance from Allura to Keith and then to Coran. The beat of silence before Keith sent them to their lions and what Lance had seen when he caught Keith’s eye; twilight turned to flinty determination.

Lance remembers wishing Shiro had been there - Shiro, steadfast and rational, so unlike the rash decision making tag team of Allura and Keith. Shiro would have put his foot down, wouldn’t have let them do this, would have demanded alternate solutions. Of this, Lance is certain.

“You didn’t stop them,” Shiro says, breaking into Lance’s recollection like a well-thrown punch. He’s turned to face Lance now, arms crossed over his chest, and his expression is still assessing.

“I tried,” Lance says into the silence, hoarse like he’s been screaming, and lungs burning like he’s been holding his breath underwater for hours. “I swear. They wouldn’t listen. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is the planet exploding. It feels like I can hear everyone screaming. Like I could feel them all rushing past me in the shockwave–” Lance cuts himself off, dragging in a breath that feels like knives. A heavy weight sits on his chest, making every inhale a fight and Lance is panting, heaving with the effort of breathing. His vision is tunneling and Lance forces his eyes wide, forces himself to look Shiro directly in the face.  

“But you didn’t stop them,” Shiro repeats, voice heavy. Lance stumbles back as Shiro advances, one deliberate step at a time. “You could have, if you’d just tried harder. You could have saved them, Lance. Why didn’t you?”

The star map starts to wink out, first the individual stars and then whole galaxies disappear into the encroaching black. “Now look what you’ve done,” Shiro says, gesturing to the fading light all around them. Lance backs up another step. Shiro’s mouth curves into a sharp grin, and Lance thinks that he has to be imagining the lengthening canines. He’s not imaging the way Shiro’s hand lights, vicious violet turning Shiro’s skin sallow in the darkness.

“Shiro? Wha–?”

The ground falls out from under Lance’s feet and he wakes up in the Red Lion’s cockpit, breath caught on a scream and icy cold down to his bones. His breath fogs in front of him, and his hands shake.  

“Red?” Lance asks. The lion is silent. Lance shakes his head. Why the lion would show him something like that? Was it the lion at all? He doesn’t understand any of this. He gets up from the seat, weak-limbed like he’s spent the morning running the track at the Garrison and stumbles down and out and back into the hangar.  He stumbles when he steps forward, and reaches out, pressing his palm against Red’s leg. The metal is burning cold. Lance snatches his hand back, shaking his fingers. The rustle of clothes makes him look up.

Hunk is waiting for him.

Solid, safe, Hunk.

But Shiro was safe too, Lance’s mind whispers, like the cold breeze in the starry place, and Lance remembers the light of Shiro’s hand in his periphery, knowing it was coming up for a blow he wouldn’t be able to get out from under. Lance presses the heels of his hands into his eyes hard enough that he sees stars. There’s no reassurance from Red when he reaches out to the bond.

“There you are!” Hunk calls, finally noticing him and Lance lets his shoulders slump as he shuffles out from under the lion, hands falling to his sides. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Sorry,” Lance says, hurriedly, and Hunk frowns. Gathering himself, Lance pushes past his fellow paladin. Hunk’s shoulder thunks against Lance’s. The force pushes Lance away from Hunk in a stumbling side-step but he catches himself with an arm thrown out for balance and continues walking away.

“Wait! Lance!” Hunk calls after him, but Lance ignores him. He needs to get out, get away from everyone, needs to figure out what that vision of Shiro means. He needs to understand why Red decided to show him that, if it was her at all, or maybe just his own mind and then, why that, too. Lance pushes away the thought of Shiro’s eyes, glinting hard, and seeing through into the very heart of him.

Hunk’s hand curls around Lance’s upper arm and before Lance can even think about it, he’s planting his feet, turning his body and using Hunk’s momentum against him. The throw sends Hunk flying, and he yells as he rolls through his landing. Lance freezes, shame bubbling up through his core.

“Quiznak, Lance,” Hunk says, getting slowly to his feet. He pulls his headband off, and sweeps his hair off his forehead before resettling the band over his head. Restless energy zings through Lance’s legs, making him want to run. “Pidge said you weren’t yourself, but I thought she meant you were sulking.”

“I’m sorry, I–”

Hunk holds up a hand to stall Lance’s apology. Lance closes his mouth with a click of teeth. “I’m not okay with what happened either. None of us are, Lance. None of us.”

“Then why–?”

“Because this is a war, Lance.” Hunk drags a hand down his face. Lance notices for the first time how pale his friend is, how drawn and pinched Hunk’s face is, how the dark circles under his eyes look like bruises.

“Hunk? Are you–are you okay?” Lance asks. Guilt joins the shame in his gut, how has he not noticed that Hunk’s been suffering this whole time?

“No,” Hunk answers, painfully honest. “You’re not looking much better.”

“I don’t… I don’t know what to do with myself,’ Lance says, raking his hands through his hair and then letting them fall to his sides. Leftover agitation makes him clench and unclench his fists, sliding his palms against his pant legs. He feels the material against his skin and tries to ground himself into the rasp of fabric.  “I can’t stop thinking about– I yelled at Pidge, I–I threw you.” Lance’s voice cracks, exhaustion creeping in on the heels of the adrenaline spike. “I’m so tired, Hunk.”

“I know. I am too.” Hunk steps forward, his arms opening in invitation. Lance falls into his friend, and Hunk wraps him in a tight hug. The solid warmth of his bulk is reassuring, and Lance feels some of the tension drain out of his spine. “C’mon, it’s nearly lunch.”

“What?” Lance startles, breaking out of Hunk’s embrace. “No, it was 0300, I–” How long had he been in the starscape? How long had he spent curled in the cockpit of his lion?

“Easy buddy,” Hunk says, soothing, his hand pressed firm onto Lance’s shoulder. “I’ve been looking for you since you didn’t show up for breakfast. Pidge said she saw you early this morning, said you booked it out of the kitchen and then she lost you. She’s worried, Lance.”

Hunk’s words turn Lance’s stomach. Pidge isn’t worried. She aided and abetted. Shiro’s condemnation rings in the back of Lance’s head. Something vicious clenches around his heart. “No.” Lance steps away from Hunk. “No. Stop.”

“Lance? Buddy? You okay?” There’s a distinct tic of concern in Hunk’s jaw.

Lance feels like the world is closing in on him, like the hugeness of the hangar is collapsing around him. He gasps, pulling in breaths, desperate, because the weight is back on his chest and he can’t get enough air. Hunk is a far away presence, his voice hidden underneath the hissing static in Lance’s head, buried under the roaring in his ears. His heart feels like it is trying to flee his ribcage, and for a solitary lucid moment, Lance wonders what the escape velocity of a human heart is, and then he stops thinking at all.

The dark steals over him in a rush, his vision tunneling down to nothing and then he’s falling back, unable to stop himself and still, he can’t breathe. He’s vaguely aware of the sound of running feet, and somewhere, there are concerned voices, but all Lance can see is the explosion - the brilliant white flash of it, overwhelming his vision and then dying away to nothing.

The moment of hanging silence after the blast was deafening, Lance remembers, terrifyingly so. Sound had come back a moment later, with all the delicacy of a freight train, rushing back in to fill the void it left. Debris hit the lions hard, pinging against the metal. Bits of planet, he’d thought then. Lance wonders if the debris was only bits of planet or if it might have been other things as well. He thinks he might be sick.

He opens his eyes, noting the silvery sheen of the tiles between his knees, watching the way the hangar lights make them gleam. Lance swallows reflexively. His stomach rolls dangerously.

“Hey,” Keith’s voice is somewhere above him. Lance doesn’t look up. He’s not particularly interested in what Keith might have to say. Keith’s hand lands on Lance’s shoulder and Lance flinches, _hard_. Keith lifts his hand immediately. Now, Lance looks up, zeroing in on the other paladin. Keith’s hands are raised in surrender, his eyes wide, eyebrows disappearing up into his hairline.

“Don’t,” Lance wheezes, “don’t touch me.” He swallows again, tries to steady his breathing. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me.”

“Okay,” Keith says, voice gentle. “Okay. No touching.” Keith lets his hands fall, but keeps his posture open and unthreatening. Lance seethes. The adrenaline crash post-panic attack disappears into a flashfire of rage that sears his veins.

“ _You_ ,” Lance threatens, raising a shaking hand to point at Keith. Keith backs up another step. “You– _why_?” Lance’s voice breaks.

“Lance, buddy, easy.” Keith is trying for cajoling. Lance sees red. He’s on his feet in a flash, and launches himself at Keith. Keith barely has time to get an arm up between them, before Lance is on him, toppling him to the floor. Keith lands on his back with an ‘oof’ of breath, his forearm braced against Lance’s chest.

Hands grab at Lance, pulling him off Keith and Lance snarls, twisting to fight off the grip. Hunk holds fast, and hauls him back. Pidge plants herself in front of them, hands on her hips. Lance bares his teeth, and Pidge bares hers right back. Hunk’s arms are like iron bands, pinning Lance’s own arms and keeping him from lashing out.

“Lance,” Allura says, and Lance swings his head to seek her out. He catches Keith picking himself up off the floor out of the corner of his eye but before he can focus his attention there, Allura says his name again. She’s always worn her authority like a second skin, and Lance can’t help his response. He sags in Hunk’s grip, the fight going out of him with a gusty exhale.

The cooling rage leaves him shaken. Lance is surprised at how quickly his blood had boiled over into flashpoint. He dares to lift his eyes from where they are studying the floor. The other paladins are arranged in a loose semi-circle around where he and Hunk are standing. Keith’s brow is furrowed, dark eyes watching Lance warily. Allura is beside him, arms folded across her chest, face carefully neutral.

“You can let me go,” he says, surprised at how hoarse his voice sounds. Hunk releases him, but doesn’t step back, and Lance is absurdly grateful for the warm pillar of strength at his back. Hunk’s always been there, picking him up and dusting him off and reining him in.

No one says anything for a long moment. Then, by some unseen sign, everyone peels off until Lance is left alone with Allura. She steps towards him and Lance’s shoulders hunch forward, his gaze dropping to the floor again.

“Lance,” Allura says, reaching out with the sound of shifting silk, to touch her hand to his chin and tip it up so he’ll look her in the eye. He can’t hold her gaze for longer than a couple of seconds, and she lets him go, but not before he catches the flash of disappointment in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, princess,” Lance mutters, to the floor. He hears the catch in Allura’s inhale.

“No,” she says, and it’s so firm that Lance looks up, surprised. There are tears standing in her eyes. “No. By all the ancient–” Allura swallows the oath and blinks. A tear trembles on her lashes and spills down her cheek. She inhales deeply, and lets out a measured breath. “You have nothing to apologize for,” she says, “nothing at all.”

“But I–”

“Nothing.” Her word is final. Lance stoppers any remaining protests behind his teeth. “I know this has been– _is_ hard for you,” Allura starts and then pauses, chewing on her lower lip. Lance waits. “I don’t know what to say,” Allura says finally, and she looks down and away from him, catching her elbow with her left hand, the fingers of her right hand twisting in her skirt.

“Why?” Lance asks. He’s like a kid picking at a scab, equally thrilled and horrified when it starts to bleed. “Why? There were so many other options. You–you condemned an entire world to–” Lance cuts himself off with a ragged inhale. “I could feel them, Allura, all those lives, snuffed out in an instant–”

“You think I couldn't? You think I don’t live with my choices? You think I _enjoyed_ this?” Allura’s voice rises, and her eyes flash. Power seeps from her skin, making all the hair on Lance’s body rise. The air around them heats. Allura’s magic roils; static sparks and snaps in her hair when she tips her chin up, and her markings flash electric pink. She takes a deep breath. Lance watches her visibly bring it back under control, fighting it back until it settles under her skin again with a soft shimmer that dissipates as she exhales.

“All I know is that you let this happen.” Lance throws the words out, and follows their trajectory. He has accounted diligently for wind speed and gravity, and he watches as they land, absolutely on target. Bulls eye, he thinks, what a kill shot. His instructors at the Garrison would be proud.  

He watches Allura flinch, and watches the way her expression shutters. Lance shivers, any warmth in the room has disappeared, sucked into the vacuum of the abyss he has just opened between him and Allura. He never did know when to quit, Lance thinks, unease snaking up his spine.

Allura draws herself up. “How _dare_ you?”

Lance doesn’t know how he dares to do anything. Truthfully, he’s been just sort of stumbling along here as a paladin, and he hates that this is when that carefully crafted illusion of his is going to start coming down. He hates that he is going to disappoint Allura with this, that he is going to disappoint the rest of the team with this, but he can’t, he won’t, accept this. He will not be party to the genocide of innocent civilians.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it, he thinks, with Allura looming over him, her presence nearly suffocating in its intensity. What he allowed to happen, what he didn’t stop, what they did–

Lance takes a deep breath. He looks up at Allura. Her eyes are so blue, they remind him of the ocean against a reef on a cloudless day. “I can’t,” Lance husks. “I can’t. I _won’t_.”

Allura reaches for him. Lance flees.

Without conscious thought, Lance heads for one of the aft observation decks. It’s empty. He thanks whatever deities for small mercies and keys the door locked behind him. The space echoes with the sound of his harsh breathing. He’s still riding the edge of panic, leftover adrenaline making him jumpy. He knows the coming crash will take everything with it, and at least here, if he falls asleep, he’s far away from anyone who could hear him.

Lance doesn’t want to sleep, because sleeping means dreaming and he does not want to dream. Not after the day he’s had. Not after hard-eyed Shiro, not after a panic attack in the hangar, not after the pressure of Allura’s magic on his skin, so different than it has been any other time. It felt like she could squash him like a bug, like she had only to think it and he would be crushed under the weight of her power. She wouldn’t though, Lance is certain of that. He can’t help the shiver that skates up his spine regardless.

He sweeps a hand over the console near the wall, waking it up, then keys in the coordinates that he had memorized in a fit of homesickness early on. He’d dragged Pidge up here and watched her punch them in, and they’d lain on the floor, staring up as familiar constellations had turned overhead. If both of them had been a bit red-eyed and sniffly when they’d gone their separate ways to bed, neither had said anything then.

Now, Lance watches the star map expand to fill the room, while space streams by outside. He moves to the centre of the room and unzips his hoodie, pulling it off and bundling it into a soft pile. He lays back, head pillowed on his sweater and stares up at the sky above him. He can pick out the Big Dipper, and follow the trail to its smaller cousin and then out towards Polaris. He casts about, looking for and finding Orion as well, and then the stretched W of Cassiopeia.

These are the stars of home, he thinks, the stars he saw on desert nights and lying on the roof back in Cuba. These are the stars that made him want to get into a spaceship and fly all the way out to them, and now he’s been further and further still. His thoughts drift to his family back on Earth. He wonders how they’ve coped with his absence, what they’ve been told about the flight from the Garrison and the subsequent launch of Blue into the sky. He hopes they don’t think he’s dead.

The thought goes through him like a sharp knife. Do his parents think he’s dead? Have they buried him and mourned him? His hand goes unconsciously to the weight of his tags on a chain around his neck. He’s not sure if anyone else still wears theirs, but his stay, always around his neck, the cold metal a link to home. Lance lets his hand drop back to the floor beside him.

Odds are, he’s listed as AWOL, and possibly dishonorably discharged to boot. It’s not like they’d asked permission before they followed Keith out into the desert, and they were breaking the rules anyway, sneaking out after curfew to investigate a crash that was obviously not something cadets were supposed to know about.

That night is a long blur in his memories now - it starts to go hazy right about the time Keith crashed into the bay where they were holding Shiro and doesn’t clear properly until well after they’d broken atmosphere in the Blue lion, his hands white-knuckled around the controls. He’s not sure he’ll ever properly remember the flight from the Garrison, or anything more than flashes of finding Blue.

Lance marshals his thoughts back towards the present, and purposefully finds Orion’s left shoulder, seeking out the slightly orange star that resides there. Betelgeuse, he remembers, from an astronomy lecture before he decided to escape the clutches of Earth’s atmosphere in a semi-sentient robot lion. The one on the hunter’s other shoulder is Bellatrix. The Dog star sits off to Orion’s lower left, and Lance squints in order to pick it out. His previous attempts to keep his thoughts on the here and now fail, as he wonders if he’ll ever see these stars planetside again.

Well, Lance thinks, this is probably not helping. He is starting to feel the drag of exhaustion at his limbs though, now that he’s stretched out on the floor and moderately comfortable. Maybe he will be able to sleep peacefully here, his head pillowed on his sweater and a spill of familiar stars overhead.

He looks up at the pretend sky above him, seeking out Cassiopeia on her throne. He’d preferred Orion’s story as a boy - the fierce and proud hunter, waylaid by the prick of a scorpion’s tail and placed in the sky with his dogs - but Lance remembers listening to the low rumble of his father’s voice telling Cassiopeia’s too.

She’d been a queen, who doomed herself and her daughter to death for angering the great god of the sea. Hung in the sky as punishment for her vanity, for daring to suggest that she and her daughter might outstrip Poseidon’s daughters and the nereids in beauty, she spins around Polaris, having to cling to her throne for half the year in order to keep from falling off.

Lance remembers scoffing at the story, but now, having flown through the Messier cluster near her heart, he can believe the tales of her beauty.

The proximity of stars, that close together, had left them all breathless.

Lance has seen so many things on this journey through the massive expanse of the universe. A great number of them have been terrifying and determined to cut his life short with their bare hands, but so many more of them have been utterly and transcendently beautiful.

Preserving that beauty has come at a terrible cost.

Try as he might, Lance can’t help but think about the lives snuffed out in the blast that he can still see the afterimage of when he closes his eyes. The cost of Cassiopeia’s folly was her life and being hung in the sky as a reminder to everyone else to curb their vanity. Lance shudders thinking about the cost the universe will most certainly make them pay for what they’ve done, and he rolls over onto his side, turning his face away from the starmap turning slowly above him.

At least they will have to pay it together, he thinks, and closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Come and chat about VLD (and other things) on [tumblr](http://sequencefairy.tumbrl.com) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic).


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